


The Lost are His to Remember

by matchboxbones



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tattoos, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-16 23:19:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12352608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matchboxbones/pseuds/matchboxbones
Summary: Five times Jim Kirk got tattoos in rememberance and one time he got a tattoo in celebration.





	The Lost are His to Remember

**Author's Note:**

> Title in reference to [Six Word Stories](http://spicyshimmy.tumblr.com/post/81030783219) by [spicyshimmy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicyshimmy/pseuds/spicyshimmy).
> 
> Mostly AOS with some elements of TOS. Bones' monologue is from the "Balance of Terror" episode in the Orignal Series. 
> 
> I, uh, have a lot of feelings about Jim Kirk.

**5.**  
The names he’d added the night before are still stinging the inside of his wrist when he etches another into his skin. The black letters are outlined in red, inflamed and hot to the touch, and his heart beats a nervous rhythm against the skinny cage of his ribs. 

_Ethan. Saoirse. Anna._

Some of them succumbed to the hunger; some to the poisoned food that was offered them. (Sickness, vomiting, a pulse slowing and stopping.) Jim thinks he might die from the loneliness, or the ever-present feeling of desperation and fear, even as his gut twists and cries out for nourishment. He knows how long he can last without eating and he knows who, in the dwindling group of shaken and scared runaways, needs the food more than he. 

(All of them.)

(It’s his job to make sure they survive and to remember them if they don’t.)

 _Jian. Maya._

He counts seven tallies (too many) on the opposite wrist by the time the Federation ships arrive with supplies. Over half the population is gone. Four thousand ( _four thousand_ ) men, women, and children, all deemed useless to the bid for survival in a starving colony and systematically executed without hesitation. There’s something burning fierce and angry at the back of his throat and Jim thinks that there’s nothing Starfleet can do to ever make up for the hole in his chest. Their arrival was delayed far too long to even begin making reparations for the children he tried to save and the ones he had to bury.

The medical crew on the supply ship talk to him like a child. (No one that lives through a genocide comes away unscathed. He hasn’t been a child since the first time he buried one.) They tell him that, one day, these wounds won’t hurt quite so much, that someday this fear will give way to trust and that, if given enough time and healing, he’ll feel whole again. He doesn’t tell them he isn’t sure if he was ever whole to begin with. 

They tell him that the memories of this, while sharp and aching now, will eventually dull. He will be able to move on from this. Jim knows, in the same way he hasn’t forgotten any second of his mother telling for the first time why his father wasn’t around, that nothing could ever make him forget the way he feels right now.

(Hollow and broken and _furious_.) 

_Daniel._

The names and tallies are theoretically permanent, inked in with a needle and trembling fingers, far less fleeting than the lives they represent. He wants them there; he wants to remember. The doctors offer ( _insist_ ) to have them removed, when they see the letters during his stay in the ship’s medbay, and then again while he’s in the hospital on Earth. They think leaving the tattoos on his skin is detrimental to his recovery, that they are slowing the healing process, but he refuses again and again, until his energy runs dry and he can’t make the words come out.

(“Just heal the infection,” he says, voice hoarse and trembling. “Don’t take them away.”)

The doctors tell him that he’s _lucky_ only seven children with him died, that he’s _lucky_ to have survived, that he’s _lucky_ to have helped so many others do the same. He thinks they’re full of shit.

~

They take them away.

~

Four years later, a tattoo artist re-inks seven small bars into the skin of Jim’s wrist, clear and even and inevitable. Their names and faces still haunt him.

 

 

 **4.**  
_Father complex_ , Pike’s eyes whisper.

“I dare you to do better.” Pike says instead, like he thinks he knows what’s stopping Jim from enlisting. He thinks Jim is angry and pushing away from everything that reminds him of his father and the wreckage he left behind. 

(Jim _is_ almost always angry these days, though, a constant undercurrent of fury and discontent pulsing through his veins even as he smiles, and flirts, and laughs. It isn’t because of his father. Not entirely, at least.) 

The blood is still drying, cold and sticky on his clothes and his skin, when, in the wake of Pike’s exit, he realizes he doesn’t think he can do better. He’s worn out and stretched thin, haunted by the names on his wrist and the constellation in the sky where a man stopped being a father and became a legend instead.

Jim’s never been one to let go of a dare, though, and, when he thinks about it, his life is really just one bad bet after another anyway, whether he wants to be involved or not. 

(-- _Sweetheart, I’m not going to be able to be there_ \--

\-- _that’s my car, you little shit_ \--.

\-- _survival depends on drastic measures_ \-- _no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered_ \--)

At this point, proving people wrong isn’t so much a habit as it is a biological imperative.

~

Afterwards, Jim washes the blood off his face and hands, and then pays his tab while ignoring the barkeeper's vaguely put-upon look.

There's an energy thrumming something fierce under his skin and he’s feeling restless ( _reckless_ ), so he visits another bar after exiting the last. This time, with his knuckles still bruised and aching, he fucks some nameless man in the public restroom, hard and fast and normal enough that he can almost forget the way his life feels like it's spinning out of control.

~

Before he heads to the shipyard the next morning, Jim has the constellation near Klingon space where the USS _Kelvin_ was destroyed inked across the skin of his back. He pays the artist double the credits to ask no questions; not his name, not his story, and especially not the particular significance in the dots, dashes, and irregular shapes being etched permanently on Jim’s body.

(He gets it as a reminder to himself. Everyone knows the graveyard of the USS Kelvin is the site of George Kirk’s death, but no one seems to remember that it’s also the site of Jim Kirk’s _birth_.)

In the end, this is, like many things, for only Jim to know.

~

He carefully keeps the Tarsus tattoos covered at all times, whether by his sleeves or a wristband. He keeps Tarsus covered in his file, too, quietly hacking into Starfleet’s main database and locking the information down until only the highest of clearances are allowed access.

If they can’t see it, Jim reasons, then they don’t know it’s there, and if they don’t know it’s there, then they can’t ask about it.

~

Bones had asked him about the tattoos once, because secrets can only be kept but so long, and Jim had panicked, breath coming short and fast in his chest until he could barely breathe at all. 

( _“You’re okay, Jim, just breathe, you’re okay,” and Jim tries to listen the sound of Bones’ voice just beyond the buzzing in his ears._

 _When he surfaces, Jim’s on the floor of the medbay, hand is fisted tight around the blue of Bones’ uniform shirt. It takes ten minutes to convince his fingers to relax long enough to let go._ )

Bones didn’t ask again, after that. 

He doesn’t mention the encrypted files that show up on his PADD the next morning, either. Jim shows up at his apartment instead, a half-emptied bottle of a Saurian brandy clutched in one hand, and Bones becomes one of the few People Who Know About Tarsus and what happened to him there.

“I survived,” Jim slurs, like it’s being dragged out of him, “but sometimes I think there's barely any of me left.”

 

 

 **3.**  
Jim’s proud to have been given the _Enterprise_ , but the vivid and brutal memory of a planet collapsing in on itself kind of puts a damper on the whole affair. An entire species critically endangered in a matter of minutes and Jim gets a medal and the captaincy of ship that he wasn’t even supposed to be on in the first place. It all seems wrong somehow that he was given so much when he wasn’t able to do more.

Bones says he has survivor’s guilt. He says he knows about the insomnia and the nightmares. He says he knows about the guilt Jim feels about surviving while so many others (millions, _billions_ ) died, the guilt he feels about the things he failed to do, even though they were far beyond his control. 

(Jim refuses to acknowledge that survivor’s guilt is applicable to him in this situation, but he does think, admittedly somewhat unfairly, that the Federation was, once again, too slow to respond and too unprepared to deal with anything that doesn’t directly benefit their stock of resources.)

(When he says this, Bones gives him a look that instantly makes Jim feel like a scolded child.) 

The rush of endorphins from the ceremony, and the knowledge that the _Enterprise_ is _his_ , is a heady combination, though, the adrenaline pumping through his veins even as he remembers the look on Spock’s face in the wake of his mother’s death. (The faint, dark green rings below his eyes in the days that follow after everything is said and done, the kind of bone-deep sorrow that Jim knows too well.)

Jim’s palm is tingling from the warmth of Pike’s hand and the pride in his eyes, but the rest of his skin feels stretched and uncomfortably tight.

The bars on his wrist and the constellation on his back are itching, as though he’d gotten them weeks ago instead of years, and he thinks he can feel the same itch across the skin of his ribs. 

Jim’s never been one to ignore his intuition.

~

He helped save the world, but he helped lose one, too, in a way, and Jim knows that the pain he feels from the needle on his ribs and the ache in his chest is almost laughingly insignificant when compared to the physical and psychological trauma of the surviving Vulcans. 

(The look in Spock’s eyes is nothing short of devastation.)

Jim wonders, absently, what Spock would think of the ink making its way under his skin. How did Vulcan view tattoos, anyway? Prior to the Reformation, the Vulcan race had been a warlike species. If anything like the human race’s own barbarian past, they may have used tattoos for a wide variety of purposes. Intimidation, identification, acupuncture. 

Would he think it strange to mark oneself so permanently? Would he think the subtle homage to his home planet an insult or a curiosity? 

Afterwards, Jim pretends he can hear Spock’s trademark " _fascinating_ ” as he so very gently runs his fingers over the new tattoo. He pretends it’s Spock’s hands on him, long-fingered and dry, touching him like Jim was something to be treasured and Jim hates himself for committing the thought to memory.

~

Later, when Jim is sleep-heavy and sluggish enough that he doesn't have the will to stop himself, he brings himself off in the silence of his quarters, thinking of Spock’s hands pressing down against his hips and thighs, or a palm on the newly inked skin on his chest. He thinks of Spock looking at him like he was worth something.

When he finishes, he is overwhelmed by guilt of it and he hopes Spock never finds out.

 

 

 **2.**  
Pike is dead.

Jim had lost the _Enterprise_ and her crew, and now he had lost Pike. Death follows Jim Kirk like an old friend, wreaking havoc and reminding Jim of everything that he has to lose.

Pike’s death is a punch to the solar plexus and it only takes a moment for the disbelief and the grief to turn into a righteous fury, burning strong and growing stronger by the minute.

He’s learned by now that there’s a strange sort of comfort in his anger. It is familiar and grounding, in a way that places or possessions can never be. People have never been a comfort. (Disappointment is easy to bypass when keeping everyone at a distance; some people splash paint across canvasses and sculpt women out of clay and call them masterpieces, but Jim has the architecture of building walls and burning bridges down to an art.) Pike and Bones have always been exceptions, in the past, but now one is gone and Jim is free-falling headlong into a revenge-driven suicide mission.

(It seems fitting that all the father figures in his life thus far have failed him.)

~

When he is alone, he wraps his arms around himself, curling into a ball on the floor, and shakes until he no longer feels as though the shields he erected around himself are cracking. 

 

 

 **1.**  
When Jim wakes up in Starfleet’s San Francisco hospital, he realizes he hadn’t expected to wake up at all. The skies outside are bright blue and sunny, and his veins are no longer burning from the radiation of the warp core. His heart is beating strong and steady, and he feels as though he’s woken up from a long nap, rather than a near-death experience. 

They banter a bit and Bones lets it slip that Jim _didn’t_ survive after saving the Enterprise and its crew. It hadn’t been a near-death experience, after all, and the knowledge of that settles dark and heavy beneath his ribs. He hadn’t made peace with himself in those last moments, not exactly, but he had known what he was dying for. He’d saved his crew, his ship, and that was all that mattered. 

“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic; you were barely dead.” Bones says in a falsely jovial tone. The “ _you didn’t make it. I thought I was going to have to bury my best friend,_ ” remains unsaid.

(“ _If anyone deserves a second chance, it’s Jim Kirk_.” Pike’s words echo loudly in his ears, a lie and a torment, because Jim’s not sure he ever deserved a chance the first time.)

 _People died, and I made the sacrifice for them_ , Jim thinks, forcing down the sick rising in the back of his throat. _They died, but I’m still here_.

Bones must recognize the look on his face, because he tells Jim, gentle but professional, for the second time they’ve known each other, that he thinks Jim has, among others things, survivor’s guilt. Then he starts saying things like “ _reckless and, frankly, suicidal, self-destructive behavior_ ,” and “PTSD,” and “ _reactive depression_.”

“Do I look depressed to you?” Jim smiles and laughs, even though he knows that’s not how depression works. 

(He’s always been good at playing dumb.)

~

Later, at the end of his shift, Bones sits by Jim’s side in the hospital room. The air is heavy with the burden of words left unspoken, and there’s a frown set deep into the curve of Bones’ mouth.

“In this galaxy,” he starts carefully, nearly startling Jim after minutes of silence, “there’s a mathematical probability of three million Earth-type planets. And in all of the universe, three million _million_ galaxies like this. And in all of that… and perhaps more, only one of each of us.”

There’s a pause in which Bones’ struggles for the right words to say, and Jim can’t bring himself to look. In his mind, he can see it clearly enough; a downward tilt to Bones’ lips, concern and frustration settling into the furrow of his brow.

 _I know_ , Jim thinks, and remembers the dozens of families starving on Tarsus, and the billions of Vulcans planetside, and the hundreds of crewmates on board the _Enterprise_.

 _I know_ , he thinks. _There was only one of each of them, too_.

“Don't destroy the one named Kirk.” Bones says, finally, and leaves it at that.

~

Jim can’t quite remember what happened after he’d passed into the warp core chamber the first time. The memories in between are fuzzy at best, the haze of pain that had been coursing through his body overtaking the majority of what he might have remembered otherwise.

He clearly remembers knocking Scotty out beforehand. (He wasn’t going to let another crewmember, another _friend_ , die, if he could help it.)

He remembers (-- _frantically throwing himself at the core_ \--

\-- _kicking at the metal structure in hopes that it would shift_ \--

\-- _his hands slipping, his thighs aching_ \--

\-- _the core realigning, finally, and then_ \-- 

\-- _a burst of terrible pain that has him crying, tremors shuddering through him_ \--

\-- _the sensation of everything from his skin to the marrow in his bones burning and bubbling and aching, and then _\--)__

__

\--Spock.

__

He remembers Spock.

__

He remembers putting his hand to the glass wall of the decontamination chamber, heart beating sluggishly and his lungs struggling for air. _I’m scared Spock_.

__

He remembers Spock aligning their hands through the glass and he remembers needing Spock to _know_ , to know that meeting Spock was the best bridge he never burned down, to know--

__

_I want you to know why I went back for you_.

__

Spock had said, “Because you are my friend,” and it was true, and it wasn't wrong, but it wasn't _right_ either, and the last thing Jim remembers is thinking, “ _I can't even get this right, Jesus Christ_ \--”

__

And then it was just -- darkness. Just darkness and the slow-fading imagined warmth of Spock’s fingertips against his.

__

__

~

__

__

Jim is nearly sick with relief that Spock hadn’t understood, in the end. Spock might have -- he might have _left_ , if he’d understood. He knows how Vulcans are about emotions and he thinks, he _knows_ , that the way he feels would be a burden to Spock, a potential disaster lying in wait.

__

It’s a burden he has carried by himself for a long time, but, if he keeps it that way, then it’s okay, it’s _manageable_ and it's something he can live with. If he keeps it to himself, then he can keep his ship and he can keep his crew, and he can be in love with his first officer right there next to him on the bridge, instead of being alone and light years away.

__

_It’s fine_ , Jim thinks, looking up as Spock enters his hospital room, looking pristine in his uniform greys. _It’s good._

__

__

~

__

__

The DNA strand he gets inked down the back left side of his ribs and around the slope of his hip is to help him remember that, even though Khan’s blood is still singing through his veins, he’s still _Jim_.

__

“Tell me, are you feeling feeling homicidal? Power-mad? Despotic?” Bones had joked, grasping at straws for normalcy, and Jim had chuckled to set him at ease. The reality is that Jim is so fucking scared that Khan’s blood will change him in ways more than physical. He’s terrified, irrationally, that he’ll lose himself.

__

The tattoo heals in record time and he finds himself murmuring, “I’m still me. I’m still me. _I’m still me_ ,” at his reflection.

__

__

~

__

__

They’ve entered the third year of their five year mission and, gradually, it becomes harder for Jim to feel the passage of time. The days blur together, hazy and mundane, in a looped exchange of documents and uniforms and medbay visits.

__

He has bright points amidst the tedium--

__

__

( _Uhura singing in the mess hall, voice clean and clear above the gentle strings of Spock’s Vulcan lyre_.)

__

( _Smiles from Sulu that gleam like stars when he hears from his husband and daughter_.)

__

( _Bones laughing, eyes crinkled shut as Chekov says, “No, Keptin, it really was invented in Russia_.”)

__

( _“Checkmate,” Jim says with a satisfied smile, risking a quick glance at the soft green flush high on Spock’s cheekbones before his eyes dart away again_.)

__

( _Spock. Always Spock_.)

__

\--that become a way of telling time, landmarks in the endless universe they explore.

__

But then something changes in Spock and Jim’s universe narrows and the world tilts and suddenly everything inside of him is breaking down. Spock is distant, hesitant and awkward in a way he never was, even when they were more enemies than friends, and all Jim can think is, _does he know? Did he find out?_

__

He finds himself frantically planning escape routes, investigating his career options, and then everything halts, because he has a job to do. He has crew to rescue and civilians to save and there’s nothing more important than that.

__

__

~

__

__

“The Federation do not care for us,” Krall, or Edison, says and, even though it’s a phrase Jim is well acquainted with, it feels wrong. Even as the echo of Tarsus rocks through him, Jim feels the wrongness of it so strongly that it catches him off-guard.

__

“I think you underestimate humanity,” he says, moving closer.

__

“I fought for humanity,” Edison yells, mouth twisting in rage. “We lost millions in the Xindi and Romulan wars. And for what? For the Federation to sit me in the captain’s chair and _fraternize with the enemy_?”

__

“We change.” Jim says, and knows that beyond its flaws, the Federation is made up of dreamers and explorers and officers who believe in moving forward into the unknown, in discovery and friendship. “Or we spend the rest of our lives combatting the same battles.”

__

__

~

__

__

“You can’t stop it.” Krall spits at him, a century of hatred and righteous anger falling from his lips. “You will die.”

__

Regret is second nature to Jim. It is an ache of sadness for what he couldn’t do, coupled with an endless desire to _do more_ , to _be better_ , to save lives and mourn the ones that are lost.

__

(In the silence of his quarters, in the early ship hours when he’s sleepless and alone, he lets himself imagine different outcomes. Outcomes where Sam never left home. Outcomes where Lenore was unsuccessful in distracting him from seeing Kodos the Executioner standing right in front of his eyes. Outcomes that saved more of the Enterprise’s crew when Khan sought to destroy as much life as he could.

__

These outcomes bring him no comfort.)

__

“Better to die saving lives than to live with taking them.” He says, breath coming hard from his lungs, and knows that it’s true. “That’s what I was born into.”

__

__

~

__

__

Jim’s birthday party is-- _strange_. He walks into the room, eye still blackened from his hand-to-hand with Edison, and he is surrounded by people who view as him valuable and worthy and _loved_. He sees Scotty and Uhura, each raising a glass filled with champagne in his direction. He sees Sulu, with his family, and Chekov, arm around a woman as he explains more of human culture to her. He sees the smile on Bones' face.

__

He sees Spock ( _he always sees Spock_ ) and his chest is warm and bright, and he feels comforted. Their eyes lock and a nameless fluttering in his stomach makes itself known, and Jim thinks, _it’s time._

__

__

~

__

__

When they are alone, he strokes his fingers along Spock’s, soft and so very, very gentle against the pads of his fingertips, his knuckles, his calluses. Jim’s intention is clear, but there’s a barely-there tremor in his hand that shows a depth of sincerity beyond the surface of his thoughts.

__

( _Want you, need you, love love love you_.)

__

"There is a word--a Vulcan word,” Spock says, his voice hesitant but his words precise as he turns his hand over and gently returns Jim’s whisper-soft touch, “for what you mean to me, Jim. It is more than _friend_ or _lover_ ; it means that there is no universe in which I am not here by your side."

__

 

__

__

 

__

**0.**

The way Spock touches him is desert-dry and golden.

__

(He is comforting in the same gentle way the blanket of stars surrounding the _Enterprise_ have been for Jim since he first stepped aboard her.)

__

(Jim thinks he and Spock are a lot alike, despite all their outward differences. Perhaps it is that particular combination of both that makes them such a good command team. All Jim knows is Spock makes him better; they make each other better.)

__

The hollow in his chest, the missing space constantly on the edges of his awareness, is gone.

__

It’s a different heat than the one he felt from the radiation once coursing through his veins. This one warms him pleasantly, situated beneath his chest, sunlit and glowing. Jim feels like, if he closes his eyes, he can almost feel the sun on his skin, the breeze brushing his cheeks, the grass plush against his arms.

__

Instead, they are in the captain's cabin, curled toward each other in the center of the bed with the infinite universe just outside the window.

__

He presses his hand to Spock’s side, palm resting warm and heavy over the fast-paced beat of Spock’s Vulcan heart.

__

(“ _Your heartbeat is so fast_ ,” Jim murmurs, lightly drumming his fingertips in a sharp staccato rhythm against the lower bones of Spock’s ribcage.

__

“ _The resting Vulcan heartbeat is roughly 3.457 times quicker than the average human’s_.” Spock replies, voice soft but strong. Sometimes Jim imagines he can hear notes of affection in Spock’s voice.

__

“ _Roughly, huh_?”)

__

Spock’s palm is heavy on the nape of his neck, hot through the thick material of Jim’s regulation uniform as he leans in and presses a soft, off-center kiss to the corner of Jim’s mouth. The feel of it is perfect in the way it isn't calculated and Jim can barely breathe from weight of Spock’s trust and what it means.

__

Spock brushes a thumb over the bare skin of Jim’s cheekbones and Jim thinks _I love you I love you I love you_.

__

There's a tilt to the side of Spock’s mouth, a smile just for him, and Jim’s never felt more at peace.

__

__

~

__

__

Jim’s fingertips stroke against the still-tender skin of the inked Vulcan script-- _t’hy’la_ \--on his side, just over his heart.

__

He pulls Spock by the wrist, until his own palm is resting over the tattoo.

__

“Does it not -- hurt?” Spock asks, with a strange inflection to his voice.

__

“You’re the touch telepath, Spock.” Jim murmurs, pliant and so fucking happy under the warmth of Spock’s body. “You tell me.”

__

“I meant the --” Spock pauses again and Jim is smart enough to start listening. “I mean the remembering, Jim. Nearly all of your tattoos are of negative events, negative experiences, negative consequences. Tarsus, the destruction of Vulcan, your father's death, your own death.”

__

And, fuck, of course Spock recognizes the constellation, the DNA strand, all of it. Of course he does.

__

“Do you think,” and here Spock swallows, loud in the relative quiet of their quarters, “that you do not deserve to be reminded of good experiences, instead? Why do you insist on marking yourself with memories I know have caused you hurt?”

__

Safe in the circle of Spock’s arms, Jim takes a deep breath, smiles, and tells him.

__

 

__

__

 

__

**Fin.**

__


End file.
